Midland ranks high for millennials buying homes

Top 10 Cities where Millennials are Buying Homes, according to SmartAsset.com

10. Port St. Lucie, Florida

Top 10 Cities where Millennials are Buying Homes, according to SmartAsset.com

10. Port St. Lucie, Florida

Photo: David Kozlowski, Dylan Baddour

Photo: David Kozlowski, Dylan Baddour

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Top 10 Cities where Millennials are Buying Homes, according to SmartAsset.com

10. Port St. Lucie, Florida

Top 10 Cities where Millennials are Buying Homes, according to SmartAsset.com

10. Port St. Lucie, Florida

Photo: David Kozlowski, Dylan Baddour

Midland ranks high for millennials buying homes

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Midland again secured a top-10 spot on a national list for rates in which millennials are buying homes.

SmartAsset.com, a financial technology company, showed Midland was one of two Texas cities to make the list and was ranked ninth overall. Chesapeake, Virginia, claimed the top spot for homeownership among 18- to 34-year-olds. Garland, the other Texas city to make the list, was third; Elk Grove, California, was second.

In describing Midland and its place inside the top 10, SmartAsset said, “Midland secured a top-10 spot on the back of two top-20 scores. This city has the 16th-highest millennial homeownership rate. From 2008 to 2017, the millennial homeownership increased by 2.13 percent, the 19th most in our study. The median home in Midland costs a little more than $200,000, making it more affordable than most cities, but fairly high property taxes in Texas make the long-term costs of homeownership slightly expensive.”

Midland tied for seventh in last year’s rankings. The only other Texas city on that list was Mesquite, which like Garland, is a city just outside Dallas.

SmartAsset also reported that the homeownership rate in Midland increased from 39.94 percent in 2008 to 42.07 in 2017. The website reports a rate of 37.49 in 2016.

In order to find the cities where millennials are buying homes, SmartAsset reported looking at data -- specifically the following two metrics -- for 200 of the largest cities in the U.S.:

This is the percent of millennials who own their homes. For this study, millennials were defined as those under the age of 35.

--10-year change in under-35 homeownership rate.

This is the percent change in the homeownership rate among 18- to 34-year-olds from 2008 to 2017.

Data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 and 2017 1-Year American Community Surveys. To create a final score, SmartAsset reported ranking each city in each metric. Then, it found each city’s average ranking and gave equal weighting to both metrics. Using this average ranking, SmartAsset created a final score. The city with the best average ranking received a score of 100. The city with the worst average ranking received a zero.

Chesapeake’s average was 100 and Midland’s was 92. In 2017, Midland’s score was 88.68.